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Beliefs
Apr 28, 2015 21:45:39 GMT -5
Post by laughter on Apr 28, 2015 21:45:39 GMT -5
No need no, but when it happens the experience of life and what we perceive -- the state of the body and mind -- is quite different than when it doesn't. In this altered state of body and mind the nature of objects and the relationships between them is discerned quite clearly. This can be so surprising to mind that that the surprise itself can interrupt the state. By the experience of life, is that the same as direct subjective experience and that which is perceived is pure Consciousness? We're always perceiving and having an experience of life, and "pure Consciousness" is always involved. When the mind is quiescent the perception and the experience is direct, in that it is free of a mind-made overlay about what is perceived and experienced. Usually, when the mind is active, that experience and those perceptions are indirect, but not always.
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Beliefs
Apr 28, 2015 22:13:45 GMT -5
Post by Deleted on Apr 28, 2015 22:13:45 GMT -5
By the experience of life, is that the same as direct subjective experience and that which is perceived is pure Consciousness? We're always perceiving and having an experience of life, and "pure Consciousness" is always involved. When the mind is quiescent the perception and the experience is direct, in that it is free of a mind-made overlay about what is perceived and experienced. Usually, when the mind is active, that experience and those perceptions are indirect, but not always. And so meditation would be one technique for having consciousness settle down into a quiescent mind state?
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Beliefs
Apr 29, 2015 0:23:46 GMT -5
Post by laughter on Apr 29, 2015 0:23:46 GMT -5
We're always perceiving and having an experience of life, and "pure Consciousness" is always involved. When the mind is quiescent the perception and the experience is direct, in that it is free of a mind-made overlay about what is perceived and experienced. Usually, when the mind is active, that experience and those perceptions are indirect, but not always. And so meditation would be one technique for having consciousness settle down into a quiescent mind state? Yes!
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Beliefs
Apr 29, 2015 5:15:35 GMT -5
Post by tzujanli on Apr 29, 2015 5:15:35 GMT -5
I was going to address the issue of beliefs on the practice thread, but decided that it deserved a thread of its own. A recurring issue on the forum is people claiming that people who speak or write about non-duality have beliefs about non-duality or that non-duality is a belief system. Nothing could be further from the truth! There may be some people who have intellectually understood that non-duality is the underlying reality, and have beliefs about that or faith that direct experience is possible, but people who have had CC experiences or seen through fundamental illusions (such as selfhood) created by dualistic thinking DO NOT HAVE BELIEFS. I know that it's hard for people who have lots of ideas and beliefs to believe that some people don't have beliefs, but that is simply the case. If we walk outside on a sunny cloudless day, we don't have to BELIEVE that its a sunny day and the sky is blue; we KNOW it. The experience of "what is" is direct and unmediated by thought. We see "what is." We describe what we see by saying, "It's a sunny cloudless day, and the sky is blue." In the same way, if we drink a Coca-Cola, we don't BELIEVE how it tastes; we KNOW how it tastes. In fact, it would be impossible to adequately describe with words what the taste of a coke IS. IOW, we are so habituated to thinking ABOUT the world, that we forget the difference between direct experience (gnosis) and ideas ABOUT direct experience (episteme). Many people on the forum have concluded that having beliefs and ideas ABOUT what's happening is less important than directly experiencing what's happening, and they are absolutely correct! Many people make this point incessantly, and I totally agree with them about this. However, they seem to lack various realizations that would free them from the idea that not having ideas is an ideal state of mind. Ironically, they seem to have lots of ideas about not having ideas. Real freedom lies beyond ALL ideas, even the idea that not having ideas is the goal. Body/minds through which SR occurs, directly discover/realize that personal selfhood is imaginary. They KNOW this in the same way that they KNOW how a coke tastes. They don't have a belief about it because what they discover is self evident in the same way that the taste of a coke is self evident. All beliefs are intellectual; they are strongly-held ideas. For posters who have attained SR, non-duality is NOT an idea or a belief or a belief system, and it is NOT intellectual. The mind (intellect) cannot apprehend non-duality because it operates by making and manipulating abstract distinctions ABOUT reality. Something far deeper than mind is what sees the truth directly. Only after the truth is seen, does mind become informed ABOUT what was seen Go outside and look at the sky. Who/What is seeing? THAT which is seeing is NOT the intellect, and THAT is what we are. What we are also includes the intellect, but the intellect does not have to be engaged. If we look with a still mind (a silent inactive quiescent intellect), THAT which sees sees "what is" prior to any act of distinction. The intellect can then be engaged, and "what is" can then be imagined as "a blue sky," but if the intellect is NOT engaged, no words or ideas are possible because the idea/image/symbol machine (the intellect) is temporarily inactive. To sum up: If the intellect remains quiescent (Tzu's "still mind"), WHAT WE ARE sees, hears, feels, tastes, and smells "what is." Source sees and interacts with Itself directly. It KNOWS Itself directly. It does not need ideas, images, symbols, concepts, beliefs, or belief systems to see or know Itself. For sages Source is all there is Those people who have recognized the trap of getting attached to concepts, ideas, and beliefs are definitely on the right track, but one more step is necessary. Sages take that step and become free from the mind, so they are able to freely utilize the mind without becoming attached to products of mind. This is why they do not need beliefs, and why they do not harbor beliefs. I have just a few comments and quotes concerning direct experience. There is no experience through the body which is direct. All perception is representational. However, there is no question that the mind/body accurately represents what's in the world. Any book on perception will tell you that the brain creates color, color does not exist in the world, only frequencies of light. The human eye has two types of receptors, rods and cones. Rods receive light and dark, black, white and grey. The cones receive green, red and blue/violet. And the eye necessarily receives a two-dimensional image of the world, the approximately 30 vision centers of the brain creates our three dimensional view of the world. "This book tells the story of how we see. It is a story with only two characters, the physical world and the brain. The physical world is a cunning, deceitful character, full of lies, or worse, half-truths. It is not to be trusted at any time, nor at any cost. The brain is a flawed detective with a loaded die for a compass, working on lousy pay with fuzzy data, and a strict, sometimes literal, deadline. But over eons of evolutionary time, the brain has always had one crucial advantage: it knows that the physical world has to play by certain rules, rules that are ultimately derived from the laws of physics. Armed with this singular insight, the brain tests and retests, millisecond by millisecond, multiple competing hypotheses about what in the world might have produced the evidence of its own eyes, ruthlessly casting aside red herrings and fallguys one by one, by one, until there is only a single suspect who does not have a rock-solid alibi: and that is the one chosen by the brain, that is what we see". page ix, Vision and the Brain, How We Perceive the World by James v Stone, 2012 If you stop to consider, pictures do not travel down the neural pathway from the eye to the brain. "The image on the retina is deconstructed, but where in the brain is it reconstructed"? (pg 238) From the eye the coded data goes first to what's called V1 in the primary visual cortex. V1 organizes the information into lines, edges and corners. This information is then sent to V2 and V3 which responds to vertical lines and borders, V4 which responds to color, and V5 which responds to motion. The highest regions of the visual brain, the inferior temporal cortex, responds to complex forms, to scenes, specific places, to hands, to bodies, to faces, color, locations in space and movements of these. (page 239) Chapter: Deconstruction of the Visual Image Perception involves both bottom-up processing (incoming data through the senses) and top-down processing. The second type of processing is the third stage called high-level visual processing. (pg 272) In this stage information is added from memory. "The inferior temporal cortex is also involved in recognizing images and assigning them to more general categories. The brain could not establish categories-or do much else-without memory. Memory is the glue that binds our mental life together, whether in our response to art or to other events in life". (pg 307) The Age of Insight, 2012, Eric R. Kandel ....What does this mean? It means that a great deal of what we call perception comes from the memory of the brain. All this of course takes place through unconscious processing. "All that you see, all that you have seen, and everything you will ever see is delivered to your brain as a stream of digital pulses whizzing along the fragile threads of salty, fluid-filled cables that are your nerve fibers. These nerve fibers, or neurons, are the only connection between you and the physical world, and the pulses they deliver are the only messages you can ever receive about that world". (pg 1) Vision and the Brain, Stone, 2012 As an analogy: you have taken the automobile apart, and looking at the scattered 'parts' you wonder where the automobile is.. the bolded description is 'part' of a totality that is the human's interconnected existence..
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Beliefs
Apr 29, 2015 5:18:31 GMT -5
Post by tzujanli on Apr 29, 2015 5:18:31 GMT -5
No, we are 'that' which does the thinking.. TzuJanLi Perhaps you are a person who says "no" when observing a thought you do not agree with because you think your interpretation is right and the other's wrong. Perhaps you are what you think. Perhaps, but i have no evidence to support that idea..
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Beliefs
Apr 29, 2015 7:00:54 GMT -5
Post by Deleted on Apr 29, 2015 7:00:54 GMT -5
And so meditation would be one technique for having consciousness settle down into a quiescent mind state? Yes! So you are doing meditation?
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Post by Deleted on Apr 29, 2015 7:01:47 GMT -5
Yes, it's an appearance in our consciousness. It suggest us to be present, but it knows where to end and how to end, that's the reason most of the people who read 'Power of Now by Tolle' fails. But I know higher alert attention would flash the truth, but that higher alert attention is something we could bring. Yes, "something we could bring". And that higher alert attention is not the product of or under control of the process of intellect. So you are bringing the higher alert attention through meditation?
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Beliefs
Apr 29, 2015 7:53:33 GMT -5
Post by Deleted on Apr 29, 2015 7:53:33 GMT -5
Perhaps you are a person who says "no" when observing a thought you do not agree with because you think your interpretation is right and the other's wrong. Perhaps you are what you think. Perhaps, but i have no evidence to support that idea.. "Nothing i say is true because i say it, it becomes true when you experience it as such.. " - Tzujanli
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Apr 29, 2015 7:56:20 GMT -5
Post by Deleted on Apr 29, 2015 7:56:20 GMT -5
" We are what we think. All that we are arises with our thoughts. With our thoughts we make our world." - Buddha No, we are 'that' which does the thinking.. TzuJanLi So you're completely identified with the thinker, yeah?
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Beliefs
Apr 29, 2015 10:43:13 GMT -5
Post by figgles on Apr 29, 2015 10:43:13 GMT -5
No, we are 'that' which does the thinking.. TzuJanLi So you're completely identified with the thinker, yeah? Must it always be black/white, either/or? ...such rigid thinking you demonstrate.
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Apr 29, 2015 10:50:24 GMT -5
Post by Deleted on Apr 29, 2015 10:50:24 GMT -5
So you're completely identified with the thinker, yeah? Must it always be black/white, either/or? ...such rigid thinking you demonstrate. What new colour would you like?
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Beliefs
Apr 29, 2015 11:17:40 GMT -5
Post by jay17 on Apr 29, 2015 11:17:40 GMT -5
" We are what we think. All that we are arises with our thoughts. With our thoughts we make our world." - Buddha No, we are 'that' which does the thinking.. TzuJanLi Perhaps you are a person who says "no" when observing a thought you do not agree with because you think your interpretation is right and the other's wrong. Perhaps you are what you think.Perhaps, but i have no evidence to support that idea.. It seems to me you interpret "We are what we think" to mean 'We are our thoughts', hence, your underlined response. I have always interpreted Buddha's words, "We are what we think", to mean, 'Our behavior, how we interface\connect\relate with other elements in existence is influenced\controlled by what we think'... hence, my underlined response. I am not troubled if you and i have different interpretations, Tzu. What interests me is your "No" declaration. As far as my understanding goes, "No", in this context, signifies either... - you are stating the other's observation-conclusion is wrong. - you are expressing your refusal to accept the other's statement for unknown reasons. The most obvious or common one is a refusal to accept the other's conclusion is a valid\true\correct account of the subject matter. One key element, as i have been exploring of late, is the process of interpretation. In the light of me having a different interpretation of his statement, you are not actually disagreeing with Buddha, but with what you think Buddha meant. You cannot disagree with someone who is long dead, because that person can no longer clarify the exact meaning to their statements. Unless Buddha wrote down what he meant by that statement, and from the little i know of him, it is documented that he never wrote any of his teachings down, so all the texts we have of Buddha are interpretations or dictations, and the accuracy of any of those has not been established. Your behavior, of responding with "No", is influenced\controlled\dictated by your thoughts of what Buddha said. You are disagreeing because of your thoughts. In the experience of this discussion you are the disagreer, you are what you think. Not permanently...haaa, unless you are like enigma, Reefs and Envy Adams, in my mind, the three top members here who revel in their Knowitallitis, who just about 24\7 perceive they are correct, hence their continuous disagreeing and slander of others and their thoughts. Not permanent...just within the tiny window of time that is the experience of the discussion of the Buddha statement, you are what you think..you are a disagreer because of your thoughts on the matter. Also, hypomathematically, if you would care to indulge\explore...let us presume for a sec that Buddha did mean "We are what we think", is, 'We are our thoughts.' This then brings up the issue of the possibility that you hold certain thoughts to be true or false. For seems to me you are saying 'No, Buddha's conclusion is incorrect because i conclude we are the entity that thinks, not that we are our thoughts.' Personally, i do not condemn or devalue anyone for holding onto their thoughts. I think thoughts are incredible and beautiful creations. The only problem i have discovered about thinking, is when i label a thought a universal, absolute 'truth\fact' when i have not established it is. This then brings me...us, if you are still exploring with me, right back to the phenomena of interpretation. For in this instance, you interpret "We are what we think" to mean one thing, i interpret it to mean another. Which one is correct? In my current state of being, and given the possibility it's impossible to determine what Buddha actually meant by his statement 'cus he dead...there is no right or wrong, there is simply personal interpretation....perceive it in the way that benefits yourself. Or in other words, it's a relative truth...as depicted in your sig quote... 'Nothing i say is true because i say it, it becomes true when you experience it as such..' Which brings up all manner or inquisitive paths to explore. One such being...how does one experience something to be true, by what means does a person determine\label\judge something to be true? My initial observation-conclusion is their mind...i examine, then reason, then conclude. Hence... "We are what we think. All that we are arises with our thoughts. With our thoughts we make our world." - Buddha
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Beliefs
Apr 29, 2015 12:21:08 GMT -5
Post by jay17 on Apr 29, 2015 12:21:08 GMT -5
Some great points here and the Monkey/Buddha story was very good, and relates closely to some of the potential problems that I see in the non-dual paradigm. I've had a long travelling day today and don't have the energy to think much right now, so I won't comment any more than that, nevertheless I wanted to acknowledge the message. My lifestyle is one of extreme slow meandering peacefulness, compared to the majority of people in modern society. Most people are very busy, multitasking, not much time to allocate to so many things. Acknowledgement you read my thoughts is more than adequate for me to sustain my connection to you, appreciating our time together. Plus, convos do end. One or both participants will eventually have no more else to say, and naturally the convo will end. So andrew, you are under no obligation to continue if you have decided you have nothing further to say or do not wish to explore any further. I can immensely enjoy a one line convo as equally as a mega one that goes on for weeks.
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Beliefs
Apr 29, 2015 12:42:14 GMT -5
Post by laughter on Apr 29, 2015 12:42:14 GMT -5
Yes! So you are doing meditation? No, not in the way I know you mean that question. Meditation happens.
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Beliefs
Apr 29, 2015 12:49:30 GMT -5
Post by laughter on Apr 29, 2015 12:49:30 GMT -5
Yes, "something we could bring". And that higher alert attention is not the product of or under control of the process of intellect. So you are bringing the higher alert attention through meditation? Meditation takes two forms: sitting and moving. In either form, there are events when the mind is noticed to have wandered on to falsity, and in those events the higher alert attention is discerned to be active. It's always available and underlies all attention, but is sometimes obscured by the process of mind. The nature of the events is different between the two forms of meditation but the resulting mind state is exactly the same. How is it for you? When and how do or did you bring that higher alert attention?
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